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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Eating Seasonally

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Eating Seasonally
  • Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:48:07 -0400


I keep reading that a component of local sustainability is to eat seasonally, and that
most don't know what that means. Well, I'm one of them. Other than what I grow in my
garden, which is the same few vegetables that they have in the Farmers' Markets, I
don't know what's "in season". Apparently, there is a seasonality to
animals, too, but since I've never grown or studied animals, I know nothing.

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore

To me, "eating seasonally" means eating *fresh* (unprocessed) food year-round. Sure, in the green season that means tomatoes, beans, and salads. But in the winter, you can eat *fresh* vegetables and fruits that store naturally without artificial processing--carrots, cabbages, apples, winter squash, onions and garlic, potatoes and sweet potatoes, the list goes on and on. And don't forget that you don't have to take winter's bossiness lying down: growing in a cold frame (a few square feet, or greenhouse size) can provide fresh cold-hardy salads and potherbs right thru the dead of winter.

As for seasonality of animals: Traditionally some animals were slaughtered in a particular season--e.g. pigs--and if you wanted to eat their meat other times, you had to cure it in some fashion (bacon, ham). But any animal you can keep alive--e.g. using stored hay in winter--can be butchered "seasonally" any time.

We have abandoned the slaughter of large batches of "meat birds" from my chicken flock to pack the freezer, and instead are eating the birds as we successively cull them throughout the year. Thus eating chicken "seasonally" means enjoying that tender young chicken on the grill in summer, braised dishes like coq au vin in the fall, and stewing hens in the winter. We experience culinary options many eaters do not have access to, and are content to wait for the next season to come around with its own favored dishes (just as we wait to enjoy strawberries in the late spring, and never buy the bastardized supermarket imitations).

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used."
~Wendell Berry





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